Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Book of Names, by D. Barkley Briggs

The Book of Names, by D. Barkley Briggs.

When I first heard the title of this book, it reminded me of "The Book ofLost Things," a secular fantasy by a man named Connelly, which has a lotof layering and beautiful, fascinating prose. That made me want to checkthis book out.

This book is a Christian fantasy. I'm glad to see there's more of thatabout lately. After all, some of the best fantasy writers wereChristians. (J.R.R. Tolkien, who started the whole modern fantasy thing,was a Catholic.)

I'm about halfway through this book, so I can't review it fully, but bythe first few pages, I knew it couldn't be too bad, with rich prose likethe following:

"Riding on the bus, face pressed against the cold window, he didn't knowwhat to think. Only that it looked... otherworldly. Like God had putVan Gogh in charge for the day."..."...mild winds had stirred to the south, scampering through row after rowof brittle stalks in the neighbor's cornfield across the road. He heardthem in the leafless oak and elm of his own yard, hissing with a high,dry laughter."..."If it was just nasty weather, name it! What did it feel like? Wet fishguts? Not quite. A full wet diaper? He remembered those well enoughfrom when the twins were little, but no. A three-day-old slice ofcheese?

Yes, that was it. Cold, damp, moldy.

Velveeta, actually, he decided, feeling a small measure of satisfaction. He fumbled for the zipper of his coat as another icy breeze prickled hisskin. Yep, another lousy Velveeta day in the life of Haydn Barlow."

The story involves two brothers who find a portal in the back of theirnew, lush farm. (When their father talks to them about runestones andNorth American Viking landing sites, it's engrossing and realistic.)

The boys end up going through this portal into another land where fairiesand gnomes are real (or fairy- and gnome-like creatures), and there aredifferent humans and religious orders of Guardians, and a kingdom inperil.

The story does have some point-of-view violations. It skips from oneboy's thought -- or from simply telling us how he feels -- then switchesto the other's without changing scenes or anything.

Another complaint, which I have with almost all fantasy novels, is thatit is quite long. At 379 pages, it's a big book. (But that's just a petpeeve of mine about most fantasy. Many would disagree.)

Overall, this seems like a good effort. It's the first in a series,"Legends of Karac Tor."

1 comment:

Yeah, not to many short fantasy's nowadays. I think the tricky part about writing short fantasy novel's is the length which an author needs to describe his world. That tends to add on to the word count.

But I've only written fantasy once, and that was a short story for an anthology, so I'm no expert.